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August 21, 2014

Hearsay Social Rolls Out Facebook Ad Tool

The program aims to help advisors and others promote their posts via social media

In addition, Hearsay Social now trains its customers on Facebook promoted posts.

Hearsay Social is rolling out a program to help financial advisors promote their posts via Facebook ads and hopefully boost their social media interaction with clients and prospects.

“With more than 1.3 billion people using Facebook every month, financial services companies have a great opportunity to connect with their current and potential customers,” said Neil Hiltz, global head of financial-services strategy for Facebook (FB), in a press release. “Hearsay Social is making it possible for financial-services professionals to increase engagement and drive business growth through Facebook promoted posts.”

In addition to evaluating the success of their Facebook-promoted posts, advisors can use the new Hearsay Social program to review and approve promoted posts while meeting advertising regulatory requirements.

“We’ve designed this new feature to make it easy for agents and advisors to launch, monitor and optimize their advertising activity on Facebook,” explained Gary Liu, chief marketing officer for Hearsay Social, in a blog on Thursday. “And for users that want to learn more about the value of ads and overall best practices, our Customer Success program now includes training on Facebook promoted posts.”

(Hearsay Social is a ThinkAdvisor contributor).

Financial consultant Michelle Monson of Thrivent Financial, for instance, says the business has had a Facebook page since last year “but wasn’t very active until Thrivent’s Field Social Media Team invited me to test Hearsay Social’s new ad functionality.”

The program, Monson says in a statement from Hearsay Social, is “a great way to tell prospects and current clients that I’m on Facebook and to like my page to get helpful financial tips. I’ll be reaching people I never would have met otherwise.”

“Facebook has proven to be a crucial place for financial professionals to engage with their clients and prospects,” said Mark Gilbert, vice president of product for Hearsay Social, in a statement. “We’re proud to launch Hearsay Social for Facebook promoted posts, enabling us to help tens of thousands of advisors and agents to increase engagement and expand business through social media.”

Earlier this month, Hearsay Social introduced compliance and publishing features for financial professionals using LinkedIn’s new Sales Navigator tool. It combines LinkedIn’s network data, relevant news sources, accounts, leads and preferences in a customized, standalone platform, according to Hearsay, which works with some 90,000 individuals in the financial-services field.

Broker-dealers, banks and other financial firms are rapidly expanding their social media efforts to keep pace with innovations and grow their business.

Wells Fargo Advisors (WFC), for example, just tapped Devon McConnell to head of WFA Digital, a new post that reports directly to WFA President Mary Mack.

McConnell most recently was vice president of product and user experience design for AmericanExpress.com and head of digital client strategy at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

At WFA, she will be responsible for leading the vision, strategy, development and ongoing management of the company’s mobile and online client platform and the investment strategy for the digital platforms used by clients and advisors.

Earlier this summer, Morgan Stanley (MS) allowed its advisors to share their news and views on Twitter. FAs with the wirehouse can post their own tweets after they have been approved by the compliance department; they also can send preapproved tweets whenever they like.

“Now, we have opened up the advisors’ ability to do self-authored tweets in addition to tweets on our thought-leadership content,” said Valentina Chtchedrine, executive director for Wealth Management Digital Marketing Strategy, in an interview. “Since we launched our social media program in July 2012, they have been able to self-author updates on LinkedIn.”